New Delhi: Bosnia and Herzegovina defeated Qatar 3-1 in the last group stage match of the FIFA World Cup early Thursday. With this win, they are hoping for a historic third-place qualification to the Round of 32. Another history was made when Kerim Alajbegovic scored the opening goal for Bosnia. He became the youngest player to score a goal from outside the penalty box in the tournament since 1966.
With this, Alajbegovic has now dethroned France star Kylian Mbappé from the top spot. For eight years, Mbappé held one of the World Cup’s little-known records.
His long-range strike against Croatia in the 2018 final made him the youngest player on record to score from outside the penalty area in the World Cup. He was 19 years and 207 days old.
On Thursday, that record fell. Alajbegovic scored from outside the box against Qatar at the age of 18 years and 276 days.
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Kerim Alajbegovic’s magic
The statistic comes with an important caveat. Nobody can say with certainty whether a younger player achieved the feat before 1966 because shot-location data were not systematically recorded. However, the record now belongs to the Bosnian teenager.
Alajbegovic collected the ball outside the area, skipped past defenders and rifled a shot into the top corner. The strike gave Bosnia the lead in a match they eventually won 3-1. The result left them on the verge of reaching the World Cup knockout rounds for the first time in their history, having exited at the group stage on their only previous appearance in 2014.
At 18 years and 276 days, Alajbegovic also became the eighth-youngest goalscorer in World Cup history.
The list is headed by Brazil’s Pele, who scored at 17 during the 1958 World Cup in Sweden. Also ahead of the Bosnian teenager are Mexico’s Manuel Rosas and Romania’s Nicolae Kovacs, who both scored at the inaugural World Cup in 1930, England’s Michael Owen in 1998, Russia’s Dmitri Sychev in 2002, Spain’s Gavi in 2022 and Senegal’s Ibrahim Mbaye earlier in this tournament.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)